


Baby Boy - A Lindemann Thing

by TerrorandChaos



Category: Lindemann, Rammstein
Genre: Age Play, Asexual Relationship, F/M, Femdom, Gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:13:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22792297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerrorandChaos/pseuds/TerrorandChaos
Summary: The Lindemann shows start with a video of Till in what looks like diapers walking through a city sucking on his thumb. It ends with the video to Till the End where Till fucks a few random women. Where will his need for self expression take him from here?
Relationships: Till Lindemann/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 29





	1. Mancher Mann kanns nicht ertragen

[Click here for the intro that shows Till in diapers sucking his thumb](https://youtu.be/N7B4Nj46sAc)

A bear of a man. A good six feet tall, broad shoulders, an almost square chin and hands that were not made to be kind. Brutish for sure. Masculine to the core. A hard line around lips that were not made for kissing. At least not the gentle kind. A man admired by other men. A leader. An alpha male. A man who women gave themselves to because he made them feel quite well used. Even now, getting closer to the end of his prime, he was still an idealized version of manliness. A seasoned warrior.  
If only he were wearing more than just those huge, saggy adult diapers. If only he weren’t sucking on his thumb. The whole image hurt the eyes, hurt the mind because it simply couldn’t make sense of what it saw.  
The man walked the streets of her city barefoot, thumb in his mouth, unaware, or not caring about the crowds who stared at him and mocked him in their petty self-indulgance. He did a summersault in the middle of a street, another and a third, dirt on his back. A droplet of blood here or there. He looked helpless and yet not scared, not confused.

It was hard to say what this was. For Moe’s trained eye this could be either. Maybe performance art of some eccentric weirdo, a trembling soul with a broken mind, or an adult lost in a headspace he couldn’t escape. Whatever it was, she watched. Examined how he reacted to the cold of this February afternoon and the little pebbles and pieces of glass that cut into his soles. She watched for a camera, or two. Performance art was useless if nobody recorded it. If the triumph of shocking the masses wasn’t likable and sharable on social media. She couldn’t find one.

Moe watched him for half an hour. Watched him wander through the streets, smile at people and suck his thumb. When she decided to approach him, she did so from the front. Slowly and carefully, deescalating the situation before he could even think about escalating it.  
“My dear boy,” she said with the gentle smile of an experienced mother. “You must be cold.”

Art never stands alone. It always coexists, evolves and builds on the recipients’ reactions to it. So if this was indeed that man’s idea of creative expressiveness then her participation only elevated the project. If however this was an injured soul, she had to be kind. Kind above everything.  
He looked at her. Piercing green eyes. Not the dark green of mysterious emeralds but the natural, eager and slightly mad green of a caterpillar before he turned himself into goo. He tilted his head, questioning. They spent one second, two, three in breathless suspense. Then he nodded. It was a big nod. The kind a child does when you ask him if he wanted candy.  
Moe nodded with him, unzipped her coat and lay it around his wide shoulders. It didn’t fit. Not at all. But it was a start. He did look a bit more like an adult now. He laughed at the sudden stream of heat down his back and clapped his large hands together. Hands, she realized, that could strangle her without much effort. Just looking at them was enough to feel them at her neck, easily reaching around it, digging into soft flesh and squeezing the life out of her.  
He followed her gaze but she saw no understanding in his eyes. Not the predatory smile of a man who had been caught in his rape fantasies.

Moe decided to risk it all. She still wasn’t sure if this was a performance or a man in distress. Wasn’t he too well build to be locked up in a mental health institution that he could have escaped from? Wasn’t he too gone, too far away from what was considered normal to be anything but a broken soul?  
“Have you lost your…” Her smile was kind, so warm and sweet and she looked him in the eyes as if she could find a mind in there that could reason. “Have you lost your mommy?” He blinked and a little smile snuck into the corner of his mouth. A smile that could mean anything. “Or your daddy?” He shook his head and the half long black hair hit him in the face. “Mommy then. You lost your mommy.” Moe was a mommy. The kind that people paid for motherhood. The kind that knew that some men could only find peace in utter and complete loss of control.

She lay her hand against his cheek and held his gaze. The lost expression in his eyes dug into her soul with cruel precision.  
“You are safe. I got you.” Her fingers barely moved over his skin. Well shaved.  
It was just the slightest hint of a movement. The way he ever so briefly pressed his cheek into her palm. For Moe it was enough. She decided to take him to her studio. A small apartment close enough to walk. A simple kitchen, a bedroom and her workroom with an extra bed.  
Moe let go of his cheek although she sighed when she broke the contact. She took his hand, his strangling hand.  
“Come with me. Clothes and warmth. Maybe a nice bath and food. You are cold. Dirty. Hungry?”  
Again he nodded and the massive paw of a hand closed around her much smaller one. Happily he sucked on his thumb and followed her as she began to walk, his movements clumsy and lumbering like a dancing bear.  
At the door she turned back to him.  
“Will you hurt me?”, she asked, well aware that she might be the one violating his mind right now. Again that adorable tilt of the head and the question in his eyes. “Do you want to hurt me?” A precious little smile appeared on his lips. “Will you hurt me?” He clutched her hand harder and shook his head. It was anything but reassuring.

Behind her, well hidden in a van, Till's camera crew watched the unfolding spectacle breathlessly. They had been instructed not to stop filming until he told them to. And so they didn’t. This was gold. The camera in his earring would continue to film wherever they went. The crew called it a day when the man and the woman disappeared into a large apartment building.  
Art hurts. Sometimes the one who makes it. Never the one who consumes it. Always the one who understands it.


	2. Er hat immer nur das Sagen

When she turned her back to him to unlock the door, Moe felt a chill like ice water running down her spine. Fear did that, or excitement. She couldn’t tell what it was, and it didn’t matter. She would keep him. If she could for a long time. Predators are not always male. Women have desires, women have needs. Her need was to have a boy all to herself. A precious little thing devoted to her. Art, or mental illness? Throw herself into the creative chaos of a stranger, or abuse the helplessness of a broken man? Both was equally perverted, equally depraved. She liked it. There was of course a third option. One that occurred to her only when she led him through the door to her apartment and then closed it behind her. Art and brokenness go hand in hand. Pain and creativity are lovers. As are insanity and performance. Truth and expression. It was very well possible that he was both: An artist and a screaming soul. 

“Come. I won’t hurt you,” she said when she took her coat off his shoulders and put it away.   
At least she wasn’t planning on doing so. Moe looked him over. In the confined space of the hallway he looked even taller and his infantile dumbness hit her hard. It was beautiful.   
“I will draw you a bath. I will wash you and then, I will feed you,” she explained slowly. The corner of his mouth twitched again and again she couldn’t interpret it correctly. He stank of sweat and the filth of the street. She left him right there in his diapers, his thumb still in his mouth. She left to do as she had said, trusting that she was fast enough, strong enough, trained enough to turn her back on him for more than just a few seconds. The danger she was in, imagined or not, made her wet – and it wasn’t just sweat. 

A few minutes later steam rose from her large bathtub. She added lavender scented oils to the water and threw a handful of bath toys in there as well. A few rubber ducks slipped under the surface only to reappear with little foam crowns on their yellow heads. A calming scent spread through the apartment and a heavy hand landed on Moe’s shoulder. Her knees buckled and yet she stood and turned around calmly.   
He was a god as he stood behind her, naked. The diaper discharged in the hallway. In any other circumstance she would have flirted with him and taken him home. Sometimes, men need to be used, too. Then again, she had taken him home and she was using him to fulfill her own desires.   
She met his eyes. There was still no fear in them, no confusion, no shame. Moe nodded.   
“You undressed yourself. Well done, my dear boy. Now come, let me help you into the water.”   
As if she could hold him. As if he wasn’t too tall, too heavy, too strong. And yet he stepped into the tub willingly and sat down with a low, long moan. The first sound she had ever heard him make. 

“Are you scared?”   
He shook his head and slammed his hand into the water causing bubbles and foam to fly. Moe laughed. The realization that she liked him hit her harder than expected. It was a deep kind of liking. The one that doesn’t depend on genitals, stamina and sex. Whatever he was when he was not this – what did it matter? She liked the non-verbal halfwit, the naked madman, the eccentric artist with the broken soul. She liked them all.   
Moe knelt down next to the tub. The water felt perfectly hot against her hand when she fished for a rubber duck, pushed it under water to fill it and then squirted some of it on his broad chest.   
First, she couldn’t identify the sound. It came so suddenly and was so overwhelmingly loud that her small female body tensed and froze in anticipation of the unthinkable – yet very well imaginable.   
Laughter. His laughter roaring through the small bathroom, shaking her self-confidence. The wetness in her pants mingled with a drop, or two of pee.   
“You are funny.” Her smile was genuine. But his hands. So big, so rough, so strong, so gentle when they took the rubber duck from her and began to play with it. Moe got up and sat down on the toilet to watch him. The man-child playing happily in stupid mindlessness. If anything he looked younger now, even less in control of his own actions. Now that his face was distorted by joy. 

Moe gave him twenty minutes. Twenty long minutes that relaxed her more and more as she allowed herself to fall into her mommy mindset. Care for him. Take care of him. He needs it. Art or not. Alpha men like him craved submission. Why not give it to him? Once more she stood up only to kneel in front of the tub.  
“Time to scrub you down. Wash your hair.”   
She always announced what she did and her touch was gentle like only a mother’s could be when she squirted some shower gel into her palm and washed his broad chest. She felt scars under her fingers. Life had been lived, it seemed. Touching him – it wasn’t sexual. Not when her tender fingers ran down his shoulders, his arms – the muscular torso.   
“Stand up.”   
He did. He did without even so much as a hint of hesitation. Moe squirted more shower gel into her palm and washed the rest of him. The muscular calves and the trunk-like thighs. She watched dirt rolling down the hairy skin in little black and brown rivers. Moe looked up, one hand on his hip, the other between his inner thighs.   
The madman looked down at her. The childlike joy was gone. Even the faintest smile had disappeared. Clear, intelligent eyes watched her. Gone the wasted mindlessness of an idiot. Intelligence. Identity. Reason. And need. Such need.   
“I got you.” She repeated the words that she had said to him on the street. “Don’t be afraid.”   
Do not fear me, said the small woman kneeling in front of the naked giant.   
Let your heart be still, said the feminine to the masculine.   
I got you, said the tender hands that now began to wash his balls, his cock, his ass. He got hard. Moe wasn’t surprised.   
“Don’t worry.” She smiled up at him with warm light-heartedness. “This happens even to the youngest boys.”   
His nod was hesitant. Something was breaking inside of him. She could see it in the water that collected in the corner of his eyes. She didn’t call it tears. Men don’t cry. They believe, they are not allowed to.

When she was done, she asked him to sit down again. He did. Then, she grabbed the shampoo, a woman’s shampoo, and began to wash his hair. The firm pressure of fingers against his scalp. Rope like tendons in his neck relaxing under motherly care. He didn’t make a sound. And yet his lips parted, and he stared at her face. Stared and stared, as if his soul was reaching out in helpless hope.   
“Close your eyes. Tilt your head back.” Moe’s voice had dropped lower. It sounded earthy now. Regal. She turned on the shower head and washed the shampoo out of his hair. A few casual, fleeting touches to his face, his lips, his ears and nostrils. All mine, she thought. For now, all mine.   
Moe pulled the plug, made him stand up once more and rinsed him off. She helped him out of the tub, dried him off and wrapped him into a large blanket. She combed his hair quite lovingly and could feel him watch her through the mirror.   
Art, she decided. Capable, sane – more or less, reasonable. An artist with a screaming soul.


	3. Muss immer alles kontrollieren

A few minutes later he sat on her couch, shivering. It couldn’t be the cold. Moe was a sex worker. It was never cold in her apartment. She left him there to prepare some food. Her fridge was full and yet she decided to do what her own screaming heart told her to do. She cooked him porridge. Steaming hot, sweetened with honey. True soul food.  
When she returned to him, he had slipped off the couch and sat on the floor. Lost in thoughts he was playing with his fingers. The large blanket lay loosely around his waist. Moe decided to watch this spectacle of brokenness for a while. Watch the slow up and down of his chest, the large form slumped over in utter relaxation. A dancing bear indeed. One, who was very much sick of dancing. He ran the index finger of his right hand along the fingers on his left. Up and down, down and up. Forth and back, back and forth. A mantra. He didn’t look happy. There was no smile, not even in his eyes. There was content. Didn’t that mean something, too? Was his own art hurting him by now?

Moe sat down on the floor in front of him.   
“It’s time to eat, my dear boy.” Why give him a spoon? He was too young to eat by himself. She grabbed a spoon for herself, scooped some of the porridge up, blew on it to cool it down and offered it to him. That something in his eyes that had been breaking when she washed him, was there again. Like an open wound. Gaping wide, unafraid to bleed. And bleeding it was. Right into her own desire. He opened his mouth and took the offered bite. A happy hum. He swallowed.   
“That it. Good boy.” Immediately he opened his mouth again. A strong jaw that could rip the flesh right out of her hand. She fed him with gentle precision and patience. One spoonful after the other until he turned his head away. She gave him to drink. Held the glass of water to his lips and a hand under his mouth to catch the few droplets that escaped. He opened his mouth. For a moment she feared that he would begin to speak. Luckily, he didn’t. It would have broken her heart. She was quite sure of it.   
“I will clean up now, my dear boy. And then, I’ll be right back.” Again, he nodded. Slower, less eager. Her dear boy was getting tired it seemed. Back in the kitchen she bit into her lower lip while she washed the dishes. The familiar metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. Could the shark in her living room smell it? She wanted him with such intensity that only the taste of her own pain stopped the impulse. Have him. Take him. Beat him. Love him. Break him. She wiped her mouth and returned to him not ten minutes after she had left.

The giant lay on the couch, wrapped in his blanket, his eyes closed. Asleep?   
“Ah, my boy. So tired after a long day.”   
He opened his eyes and in the sweetest, most innocent gesture he reached out for her, grabbed her hand and forced her down on her knees. The iron grip around her wrist took her breath away in all the worst, all the best ways.   
“You want me to stay? Wait till you sleep?”   
He nodded, released her and Moe joined him on the couch. A few moments later they found what felt right. His head on her lap. He closed his eyes and she began to play with his hair. And while she sang to him – a lullaby from her childhood – images passed by her inner eye.   
  
_I want to see you bloody, she thought. I want to hurt you. I want to break this stupid face, annihilate that boring innocence. I want to fuck you in the ass, hard enough for you to scream. That’s how I want to hear your voice. I want you to scream until your throat bleeds. I want to destroy every atom of you that isn’t already corrupted. Then, you’ll be like me. Then you and I can be a we._   
The giant fell asleep right there on her lap. Moe continued to touch his hair and face. She was proud that she resisted the urge to cut his nose off. Pretty things had to be destroyed. She couldn’t bear innocence. His soul was screaming at her even now when he snored softly in the most peaceful sleep. She wanted to eat it.

_He never thought it would make a sound. It did. Considering the enormity of what was happening he had expected, maybe hoped that the sound would have been bigger. Something in his mind moved. Something that he had relied on for over fifty years shifted with the sweetest little gasp and with it his whole world changed. Ah, light – and her sweet face right in the middle of it. He felt it surround him, enclose him, rush through him, burn and consume him. Probably he screamed. Everyone would so why wouldn’t he? The light pressed through his skin, into his eyeballs, forced itself into his mouth and down his throat. He gagged and fell on his knees. There was no pain because everything was already agony. His eyes lit up with the new power inside of him. Golden light. His body, his very molecules and atoms were on fire. It crawled along his spine, greedily gorged on his thoughts, his mind, his very soul. It ate him. He was being ripped apart beautifully, remodeled, molded into something new, something smaller. Something that could host the light without dying from it. Because yes, Till was indeed dying. There, on his knees next to the couch, his body engulfed by screaming flames and only held together by the power that was destroying it. Something in his mind had moved, had gasped and the whole world moved with it. If his vocal chords hadn’t been on fire he would have laughed at the way his skin melted, the way his very flesh smelled while it darkened under the flames. He didn’t understand why he was alive, why he was conscious. The golden light consumed him, caressed him, took possession of him. He was its Master and its slave._


	4. Und sich dabei nie selbst verlieren

_In her dreams she saw him. His body, still glorious, still naked, standing upright. He was dead and so much alive. Bugs crawled all over the leaves and branches to the twigs that grew out of his skin. Grew in bright green and red, strong, nurtured and fed by his blood, his decaying body. Beautiful vines grew out of his arms, blossoms of many colors sprouted from his neck, his stomach, his groin. This, she realized is the only way a man can give life. In death. It was so beautiful, it hurt. She reached for one of the small apples that was growing on the chest of the man-tree, plucked it and bit into it. In her imagination it had to taste of blood. Blood, sweat, tears and many, many years. It didn’t. Instead, it was sweet. Saturated with life. Indeed a forbidden fruit. Juice ran down her chin onto her chest. She licked her lips clean and he opened his eyes._

Moe jerked awake just in time to hear him scream and flail. One of those shovel-like hands landed on her chest, then another on her shoulder. She fought him in the wild panic of a rabbit that was starring into the throat of a wolf. He fought her with everything he had and that was a lot. But at the same time, he was also waking up. Waking up not just from his dreams but also the headspace he had fallen asleep in. When his brain understood the difference between dream and reality again and remembered the previous day, he calmed down. He clutched the blanket that was still half draped over him and pulled it tighter around his frame.   
“Good morning. I’m sorry,” he said, his voice laced with a precious German accent.   
Moe lowered her eyes. Her baby boy was gone.   
“I don’t have clothes that fit you.” She shrugged. “Coffee?”   
She got up when he nodded and went to the kitchen. Was she strong enough for this? She wanted him back. The stupid, sweet face. The mindless eyes. The childish play. She wanted that innocence back that she had so longed to destroy only hours ago.

There it was again, the large hand that landed on her shoulder. Firm, heavy, gentle.   
“Why?”, he asked and she believed him.   
“I like to collect broken things.” Moe didn’t turn around. “They are pretty.”  
“I’m not broken.”   
“But that boy was pretty.”   
Silence. Just that heavy hand on her shoulder.   
She gave him his coffee and returned to the living room with her own. Not the couch, no. Instead, she sat down on the floor. She needed that to feel a bit more grounded right now. Slowly she drank.   
He sat down across from her, also on the floor, paws wrapped around the coffee mug. For a few moments he watched her. Then, he began to speak. Some of the things he said, she knew. An artist. A video project. Yes. For a tour. A singer. Till. That was new. All fake.   
Moe’s head snapped up.   
“Until I bathed you it was fake, yes. Then, you were bleeding.”   
“Yes,” he nodded and touched his chest, his heart. “Here.”  
“Art hurts,” she shrugged and he laughed. “You’re not done yet.”   
“I’m never done,” he replied. “Till the end.”   
“More of this? More art?”   
“More life! Where’s the difference?” Now it was him who shrugged and smiled. It was an open smile. One that made her imagine what his face would look like all bruised up and bloody.   
“I want my boy back.” She raised her chin defiantly. “He’s in there. And he’s real. When I washed you, fed you and sang you to sleep, he was real.”   
Till nodded slowly. “I believe so, yes. More videos?”  
Moe looked away. “Both. Videos, yes. Expression above everything. But that boy deserves honesty and truth. He deserves your surrender.”   
“I don’t surrender.” When he spoke like that his massive body seemed to become even larger. No, he was most certainly not a man who surrendered to anything.   
“You’re betraying what’s in you then,” she replied calmly and emptied her mug. “It’s both, or nothing. Understand your truth and find me. Until then, leave my apartment.”   
He looked down at himself and raised an eyebrow. Naked?   
“Keep the blanket.”

And so Till got up and left. His crew was already waiting for him. In the car, he pulled the camera earring out, opened the window and threw it away. His director groaned and rolled his eyes.

During the next weeks, Till’s creativity exploded. The ideas for pain, gore, violence and suffering that invaded his mind left him breathless with their intensity, their fucking intensity. All his madness was unleashed and all he could do was hold on tight while his mind took him on an insane ride. There was no safety in this, no reassurance. Nothing. Just the raw and gross vomit of ideas that always followed an experience that changed something in him. Inspiration was a blessing – and most certainly a curse. He barely slept and he drank immensely, both alcohol and unhealthy amounts of coffee. One night he rewrote the concept for the Platz 1 video. Alone in some Russian hotel room he wrote it knowing very well that it would never be realized. He was a pen and paper man who never got used to typing those chaotic thoughts into a computer, or a mobile phone. This is what he scribbled that night:

_Sie hätten uns essen sollen. (They should have eaten us.)  
_ _Ich gebe ihnen meinen Schmerz, aber es ist nie genug. (I give them my pain but it’s never enough.)  
Gieriges Pack. _ _(Greedy scum.)  
Kunst und Künstler sind eins. (Art and artist are one.)   
Wo hört das auf? Platz 1? Da fängt es an. (Where does it stop? Number 1? That’s where it starts.)   
Nehmt mein Herz, meinen Schwanz, mein Blut, mein Fleisch. (Take my heart, my cock, my blood, my flesh.)  
Seid ihr jetzt befriedigt? (Are you satisfied now?) _

He saw it clearly in his mind: The escalation! A person buying a Lindemann album, a concert ticket. A crowd losing all identity, reaching for him in dull adoration. Girls on his lap, one pretty face after the other. Hands grabbing, pulling, shoving for just another autograph, another picture. Another trophy. A piece torn from his and Peter’s clothes. More! Greedy hands ripping their hair out. Nails digging into skin. Blood. All those pretty girls and boys licking their fingers, licking their blood away. A sacrifice to fame. More! Sharp teeth, human teeth in his arms, in Peter’s neck. Tearing flesh, ripping it from the bones. MORE!! Two men reduced to objects of unhinged consumption. Such fear. Such ecstasy. And the crowd eats and eats. A cannibalistic orgy. Beautiful and sensual. In the end, they fight over bones. By accident they stomp on the skulls and break them. Beautiful. Platz eins. The crowd disperses. Happy faces full of blood, an occasional burp. Arm in arm and hand in hand they leave. Finally satisfied.   
  
But what about him? His satisfaction?   
A vodka bottle crashed against an expensive painting on the wall. Both fell, both broken. What did it matter? Money was just paper. He had enough of it. And yet he picked the shards up. His face changed into the same mask of mindless stupidity that Moe had witnessed all those weeks ago when he watched little streams of blood running down his arms. Oh… and his chest. And maybe one, or two on his legs. Pain used to satisfy him. Used to calm down the fucking madness. Through the pounding headache between his temples he could hear a lullaby.   
A few minutes later a large, dark shadow rushed out of the hotel and jumped into a taxi. He was bleeding. Mommy would make it better.


	5. Er wirft mit Geld und Sinn und Wut

He barely made it. It was a slippery path his mind was on. A slippery path into the warm nothingness of a child. While the car carried him through the night his bleeding hands slowly stopped shaking - at the same rate as reason left his consciousness. He longed for another hot bath, Mother’s gentle hands, a sweet bowl of porridge and a warm blanket. He barely made it out of the car. Luckily it was an Uber so he didn’t have to pay in cash. Honestly, he probably wouldn’t have been able to anymore. But he remembered her door and knocked. She opened and again something in his mind just… moved. The tension melted away from his features, his shoulders slumped forwards and a small smile appeared on his lips. 

“Come in,” was all she said. Moe wasn’t entirely sure who it was that stood in front of her in the early morning hours of this wintery night. Was it the man, or the boy? She did however see that he was injured. Hurt even. And that hurt went deeper than the small abrasions on his hands. When he entered and didn’t speak she began to suspect the truth. When he took his shoes and jacket off, she smiled. When he began to unbutton his shirt however, she stopped his hand. Oh, she knew. It was the boy but still…   
“You are bleeding. And your hand is cold. Come, my…” Her smile grew. “My darling boy. Mommy will help you.”   
The smile on his lips was ever so gentle. The relief in his eyes made her shudder under the burden he usually had to carry.   
Still holding his hand, that huge, shovel-like hand, she led him into her living room and made him sit on the couch. He complied with the sweetest nod.   
“I’ll be right back. No need to worry.” 

She left him only for a couple of minutes before she returned with a bowl of hot water, disinfectant and bandages. In her pockets however she hid other things, unsure whether she would need them. Oh, but how she had missed him. That giant baby. How she had missed being needed like he needed her.   
When she knelt in front of him, the bowl on her floor, she reached up and ran her fingers through his hair.   
“Don’t be afraid. I’ll take care of you.” Again. She said it to him often, like a mantra. It mattered to her and she was sure that it mattered to him as well. He had told her that he never surrendered. And yet here he was, giving in to the need to be small, to be little. Whatever had happened in the last weeks, days, hours, he was not in a good place. He was here seeking help. Her hand slipped lower until it lay against his throat. His neck was so thick, there was no way she could reach around it. Even with two hands she never could. She applied the gentlest of pressure but there was no alarm in his eyes, no fear. He didn’t suddenly snap out of the mindset he had given himself over to. This man, Till, was truly her boy right now. 

She released his neck and took his hand. Then, she grabbed a wet cloth and began to clean the blood off his rough skin. He flinched, tried to pull away.   
“Can you be brave for me, little one?”   
He nodded hesitantly but now there was a little tremble in his hand. The insecurity of a child who feared a sudden stab of pain. With a soft smile Moe reached into her pocket and handed him a gummybear. A red one. Her favorite.   
“This is a magical gummybear.” She looked into his green eyes as she explained the miracle of the sweets in all seriousness. “You eat it and you will be a lot braver. It will still hurt a bit, but you will be strong enough to bear it. You’ll be able to bear anything.”   
Moe fed him the sweets and then continued to clean his hand. There was no flinching anymore. “You are doing so well. Such a brave, brave boy.” 

Only then did she realize that he had gone mad. Because no matter how much blood she cleaned away, she couldn’t find the wound. Slowly she followed the trail higher up his arm.   
“You were right. Your shirt…”   
Carefully she unbuttoned it and pushed it off his shoulders. Her boy shifted, his posture changed, his hand clenched to a fist.   
“I… I… I’m sorry.”   
Again, the first thing he said to her. Always sorry. Poor thing. That poor, poor thing. He was apologizing for the blood. For the gashes on his arm and chest. Quite obviously self-inflicted. A screaming soul reaching out in the only way it could. He was embarrassed. Oh, but he shouldn’t be. Little boys are not embarrassed. She was losing him.   
“Shhh…. No, my darling boy.” She placed a bloody finger on his lip. “No need. No need at all. Close your eyes.” He did. Luckily, he did. “I’m here. Mommy’s here. I’ll take care of you. You are safe. You are absolutely safe. And… and you are loved. Mommy loves you, my sweet darling. So much. I’ll take care of you. I will…”   
She continued to talk and moaned quietly in relief when he did indeed relax again and the years, the adulthood that had suddenly shown through disappeared again. 

Moe spent the next hour cleaning the wounds on his arm and chest. She also realized that there was another on his leg, two, no three. So, she took his pants of and cleaned those as well. She also fed him gummybears when the disinfectant stung him, and he whimpered. Gentle hands wrapped bandages around the wounds. One time she completely lost herself in her very own role and kissed the bandaged wound. It was only then that he opened his eyes. Oh, the child-like joy in them! Gone the man, gone completely. She could barely believe that he was more than a mindless idiot – or a boy that needed to be adored. 

And Till himself? He was happy. No. He was content. Floating in a river of contentment. There was nothing he had to do. Nothing he had to be. Here, he was a nobody. Just another boy. Mindless. No past, no future. No responsibilities. No duties. Nothing. Just warmth and affection. Just Mommy’s kisses and oh… another bowl of steaming porridge. He was tired but he ate. She wrapped him in warm blankets. All he could do was stare at her in adoration. His head in her lap, his nose snuggled against her belly when she sang him a lullaby. In the mind of a little child, Mother is God. 

Once he slept Moe allowed herself to feel the terror that was lurking right under the gentle care, she was able to give. He would open his eyes and be the man again. Once more she would lose what she so needed. She would lose being needed. For a fleeting moment she thought about lobotomizing him. He would be hers forever. To adore and take care of. The moment passed and Moe was almost sad about it.


End file.
